McDaniel aide slams GOP

State Sen. Chris McDaniel’s policy director lashed out at the GOP establishment Friday over the apparent suicide of a supporter charged with felony conspiracy related to pictures taken of Sen. Thad Cochran’s wife.

“A good man is gone today [because] of a campaign to destroy lives,” Keith Plunkett, a Mississippi GOP operative, tweeted. “To all ‘so called’ Republican leaders who joined lockstep: I WILL NOT REST!”

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Plunkett deleted the post after others on Twitter responded negatively and accused him of using a tragedy for political gain.

McDaniel lost Tuesday’s runoff in the Mississippi Senate race to Cochran but has not conceded and is mulling a legal challenge. He issued a statement Friday afternoon offering condolences to the family of Mark Mayfield, a local tea party leader whose wife found him dead in their garage around 9 a.m.

“Regardless of recent allegations made against his character, Mark Mayfield was a fine Christian man who was always respectful and kind,” McDaniel said. “He was one of the most polite and humble men I’ve ever met in politics. He was a loving husband, father, a pillar of his community, and he will be missed. We are saddened by his loss, and we send our thoughts and prayers to his wife, his family and friends.”

The Madison County district attorney alleged that he gave advice to a blogger on how to get into the nursing home where Rose Cochran, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, lives so that he could photograph her. Mayfield declined to take the pictures himself, the prosecutor said, but his mother had lived in the facility so he knew the best way in.

McDaniel has consistently denied involvement and authorities never directly linked him to the scandal. Mayfield had helped him raise money and was an avid supporter before his arrest.

In a follow-up email, Plunkett said he served with Mayfield on the Madison County GOP executive committee, “and our paths crossed politically on many occasions over the years.”

“Mark was as level-headed and deliberate a person as I have ever met, never prone to histrionics,” he wrote from his iPhone. “His affiliation with the TEA Party helped lend the group credibility with a wide range of conservatives, Republicans and even many Democrats in Mississippi. That’s why so many were shocked when it was alleged that he had been part of some political shenanigans. It was out of character.”

McDaniel allies have argued that the whole nursing home incident was politicized to get sympathy for Cochran in what became one of the nastiest races in memory.

“The politicization of the incident was beyond the pale,” Plunkett said. “It was an attack on a good man that is well respected. I’ve never met a person that had a bad word to say about him. It’s shocking to those in the state who knew the demeanor and quiet dedication of the real Mark Mayfield. He wasn’t the character he was being cast, and he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

As he did on Twitter, Plunkett characterized the suicide as motivation to keep working.

“I’m saddened as I know others are, too. But, I’m also more determined than ever to fight for the things Mark believed in, and the hope he had for our state,” he said. “Mark’s calm approach to political disagreement is what this state needs badly right now. I will miss him.”

Other activists who backed McDaniel also are taking the loss hard.

Pat Bruce, president of the Madison County Conservative Coalition, told the Clarion-Ledger that Mayfield was the finest man she knew.

“They killed him,” she told the paper. “They sent a SWAT team to his office, six officers, just to arrest him.”